LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

A roadmap to legislative history in Minnesota

Say you wanted to know just why the Legislature banned the
"trafficking in skunks" in 1982. Whom should you ask? 

Although there are a few members who probably still recall that
debate of 11 years ago, their memories may be a bit sketchy. The
best way is to spend a little time at the library and the
Minnesota History Center.

Most official state archives are stored at the center, as are
floor and standing committee minutes and/or audio tape recordings
from before 1983. Audio recordings from the past decade are
available through the Legislative Reference Library in the State
Office Building

Below is a list of resources and tips on how best to put together
legislative histories, and how to track the path of that
enigmatic anti-skunk law.

Step-by-step history:

Identify the section in Minnesota 
Statutes you want to research.

A trip to any local library will launch your legislative
research,  which is largely a backwards process.

Start by finding the most recent 10-volume set of Minnesota
Statutes -- the codified laws of the state, the final product of
the legislative process. Statutes is issued every two years, with
"pocket parts" to cover odd-numbered years.

Use the subject index to locate chapters in the statutes you want
to research.

Skunk trafficking control is located in Chapter 145, which deals
with topics of "Public Health." Section 365 makes it a
misdemeanor to "acquire, sell, barter, exchange, give, or
purchase any live skunks" or to import or export the little
critters.

Look for the History notation after each statute section for
references to Laws of Minnesota.
Every section in Statutes cross references chapters and sections
for every year in which changes occurred. These reference numbers
refer to bills in Laws of Minnesota.

In the italicized History note following the anti-skunk statute,
"1982 c 591 s 1" appears. That means that the law was passed in
1982 and can be found in its bill form under Chapter 591, Section
1 of that year's Laws. Because no other citations appear, the
statute has not been amended since.


Read through the relevant chapters in Laws to determine which
ones affected or created the statute you are interested in.
Laws compiles the official text of all bills passed by the
Legislature chronologically. Laws will also show appropriations
provisions, if any; generally, Statutes will not.

Reading the text of legislation can answer some tricky questions.
Chapter 145 of the statutes contains a subsection that appears to
have been repealed. But reading the Laws shows that the bill had
a self-repealing clause: it exempted skunk trading businesses
from the export and commerce bans until 1985. That clause was
subsequently deleted for the sake of clarity. 


Note the House and/or Senate File numbers, located in the chapter
headings of Laws.
The scent of the anti-skunk bill remains fresh: it was passed as
Senate File 1443. So the best place to look next is the official
record of the state Senate for 1982.


Go to the Numerical Index in the index volume of the Senate
Journal or Journal of the House for the appropriate year. Locate
your bill number and the first page reference.
SF 1443 was introduced on the floor of the Senate on page 2840
and referred to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.


Go through the other Journal page references.
A bill might be re-referred, tabled, vetoed, etc., during its
serpentine path through the Capitol, so make sure you check all
page references in the journals so you understand what happened,
when it happened, and who, exactly, was responsible.

The Senate Agriculture Committee recommended that the state crack
down on the skunk trade and referred the bill to the Senate floor
on Feb. 15, 1982.

Committee reports are printed in full in the journals. For the
skunk bill, the Senate committee actually inserted the word
"live" before the word "skunk" during its deliberations.
Presumably, the original legislation could have applied to dead
skunks as well.

The last page citation shows that Gov. Al Quie signed the bill
into law on March 23, 1982.


Check for a companion bill in the Legislature's other chamber by
looking in the Companion Bill index in the  index volume of
either the House or Senate journals.
SF1443's companion was HF1509. It turns out that the House
version was amended to apply to raccoons as well (though that
language was stricken by a conference committee). Raccoons? Those
friendly, masked substitutes for teddy bears? Why the
discrimination against them, too? Audio recordings are really the
only way to find out.


Ask a library aide to help you find committee minutes and audio
recordings of committee hearings and floor sessions.
Committee work is at the heart of the legislative process. Often,
legislative committees are where the real "action" takes place
and where bills take their final form.

Senate "committee books" (which are collections of minutes) go
back to 1911, while the House began in 1919. The exceptions are
the two Judiciary committees, which have minutes as far back as
1883.

Minutes will tell you the date of a committee hearing, and you
can use that information to find committee audio recordings. In
addition, "committee books" have the texts of amendments offered
during hearings.

Tapes of House committee hearings are available back to 1973;
Senate committee recordings date to 1973, though there are a few
from as early as the mid-1960s. Floor session recordings began in
1973 for both chambers. Any recordings made prior to 1983 may be
found at the History Center. More recent recordings are held by
the Legislative Reference Library in the State Office Building.

In the case of the skunk trafficking bill, a lot of the fireworks
occurred on the floor of the House. Former Rep. John Brandl got
an amendment passed to outlaw the raccoon trade along with skunk
commerce. "They're deceptive animals," Brandl explained, "They
may appear to be gentle, but they can turn vicious." An original
co-author was so mad the bill was amended, he voted against the
legislation, claiming (in a rising voice) that Brandl was letting
his emotions "interfere with our legislative responsibilities."

The recording of the March 10 floor debate also (finally) gets to
the heart of the great skunk debate. Former Rep. Robert Reif, the
chief author of the bill in the House, said that, despite jocular
newspaper articles to the contrary, the issue was "not a laughing
matter." Reif claimed that 80 percent of all Minnesota rabies
cases were attributable to skunks. The House agreed with Reif's
diagnosis of rabies-infested skunks as "a potential time bomb"
and passed the bill by a vote of 76-35.

The trafficking in skunks law is relatively easy to track. In
some cases, official committee and floor records will not have
the breadth of information you are looking for. Other avenues of
inquiry available at the History Center's Weyerhaeuser Reading
Room include:
-- Minnesota Rules. This reference has the text of administrative
rules that have been adopted to implement the law. Rules offer
more detail on how a statute is actually being administered.
-- Official records of state agencies, political parties, and
other groups concerned with legislation.
-- Newspaper articles or editorials referring to the subject.
-- Personal and/or public papers of lawmakers involved in the
issue.

--Adam Samaha




Tips to remember:
-- First, the Legislature is not always efficient. Its winding
process can be very confusing. It may make our democratic system
more deliberative, but it also makes historical inquiry
unavoidably circuitous.
-- Be prepared for an onslaught of "legalese." Laws and statutes
generally aren't written by writers. Patience and perseverance
are your best resources.
-- The more recently the state took legislative action, the more
material you are likely to find. It is rare for any committee
records to exist prior to 1919, while after 1972, tape recordings
of committee hearings and floor debates are nearly complete.
-- Beware that the History citations in Minnesota Statutes may
not trace the law to its year of origin. For example, the first
historical reference for juror compensation (Chapter 593, Section
48) refers to a 1977 law. However, that 1977 law merely
recodified previously enacted laws relating to juries. That means
laws from several different sections were reassembled under one
chapter and renumbered. The first jury compensation law was
actually passed in the 19th Century.
-- Write down dates of legislative action. Dates are your best
source for finding minutes or audio recordings with information
on a particular bill.
-- Committee minutes are usually not very informative. Although
they chronicle formal actions, names, and dates of those who
testified, and a list of committee members, they do not really
record the substance of the discussions that took place.
-- Archival recordings are fascinating and can bring you closer
than any other source to the issue you're looking at. With the
tapes you'll hear all the nuances of lawmakers' public
discussions: everything from sneezes, to snickers, to screams.
However, there may be times during your research when it seems as
if Rosemary Woods might have been the State Archivist: many of
the tapes are of poor quality, and a few hearings were
inadvertently not recorded.


The research facilities of the Minnesota History Center are
located at 345 Kellogg Boulevard West in St. Paul, south of the
Capitol. They're open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday,
Friday, and Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday. Call
(612) 296-2143 for more information.

The Legislative Reference Library and tape room are in the State
Office Building, just west of the Capitol. The library is open
Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. when the Legislature is in
session, and the tape room -- with committee books and audio
tapes -- is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.



Originally printed in 1993 in the Session Weekly, a weekly
newsmagazine published by the Minnesota House Public Information
Office.

***Last Update 8/5/94 (jtt) Last Review 8/5/94 (jtt) ***